Halloween Butterfly Specimens (Grandin Road Inspired)

Our easy Halloween Butterfly Specimens are an elegant addition to any Halloween display, and they are much cheaper than the Grandin Road originals!

Well hello there! I know it’s been a time since I’ve last written a post, but hey – Halloween is just around the corner! Did you really think the Halloween Queen could stay silent during her favorite season? [Handan? Silent? The woman hasn’t stopped yapping since I first saw her in 2010! -Greg].

As usual, we’ll be sharing all sorts of Halloween projects for everyone’s taste throughout the season: some spooky props, some cute props, and some fun and easy props. We’ll even have some great free printables for you to dress up your walls. Oh yes – you’re gonna love our free Halloween printables! But today I wanted to do the opening with a knockoff project I finished last year… something rather elegant… something that will complement your lovely Halloween apothecary jars display… something that you can actually use in your home all throughout the year if you want: Halloween Butterfly Specimens!

They look gorgeous, don’t you agree? And the best part is that if you removed the skeleton rat from that picture, you’d have yourself a nice girls’ room decoration or even a beautiful spring centerpiece.

I have to say, I love Grandin Road’s Halloween props. They always have a great dose of spookiness and elegance in their displays… and an even greater price tag. So what’s a Halloween Queen to do? Put on her thrifty hat and go to the Dollar Store to get some butterflies!

Dollar Store butterflies – these come in packs of 2. Depending on the size of your cloche, you can use 2 or 3 packs. By the way, if you like dragonflies, you can also add one or two into the mix like I did. 😉

Thin wire sticks or bamboo skewers – I used a Dollar Store flower’s wire stems. But anything like bamboo skewers or even small pieces of a wire hanger will do.

A base for the glass cloche bell – I used a big bird nest for this, but you can use anything you’d like, from a wood base to wicker plates.

After gathering the supplies, I sprayed the butterflies with Rust-Oleum Copper spray paint. I sprayed 2-3 coats on each side of the butterflies to ensure good coverage.

While waiting for the paint to dry, I cut some wire sticks from a Dollar Store flower stem – some short, some longer pieces.

Now you might be wondering what else you can use instead: if you have some bamboo skewers on hand, they’ll do just fine. But if you don’t have anything similar, then buying a flower pick from Dollar Store is the cheapest way to go, as it will cost you only a dollar. You can easily take out the flowers and cut some wire sticks from the faux stem you have.

Next, I cut 2 corks in thirds with a utility knife.

Then I poked the wire sticks into the wine corks as shown in the pictures below.

Next, I spray painted the wire sticks and the wine corks black and let the paint dry.

While waiting for the paint to dry, I went back to working on the butterflies. Using a wire cutter, I cut the short and wimpy wire the butterflies had underneath.

As the original version had some blackened areas on the butterflies, I did the same thing: using some black gild, I added some blackened spots to my butterflies.

Next, I chose the base for the cloche to sit on. From the options I had on hand, I went with the big bird nest, as it was the best fit for my cloche bell. But really you can use anything from a wood base to wicker, so again, the choice is yours.

Once I picked the base, I started putting everything together. I first hot glued the butterflies to the wire sticks, then I hot glued the wire sticks to the base I was using (which is the bird nest in my case.)

Once I was done with the placements of butterflies and the wire sticks, I hot glued dried Spanish moss on the bird nest. This was only to hide the corks in a decorative way.

Next, I placed a couple of LED tealight candles in the moss and placed the glass cloche on top, and that was that!

Now before going into the beauty shots, here is a short video I found to show you how to make a cloche bell from a plastic soda bottle, just as I promised!

Such a thrifty DIY isn’t it? I knew you’d like it!

Ok, now it’s time for our beauty shots, but just so you know, we only have 4 final pictures this time. Well, what can I say – my Babes had a rather challenging time taking these pictures. He kept telling me that he was seeing double and I kept telling him to cut it off with his martini already. But little did I know, he was talking about the reflections on the glass. LOL.

I hope you liked our knock-off Halloween butterfly specimens. Next week Greg will be sharing some awesome Halloween printables, so stay tuned!

Handan, that looks amazing! I had missed the post on the apothecary jars, so I went over to that post, as well! Love it! I’m going to pass these on to my daughter-in-law, who absolutely loves to decorate for Halloween, too! Since you brought up Grandin Road, may I make a suggestion/request? I love their topiary displays for the front porch. They have 3 graduated sizes of very large ball ornaments, that are topped with a finial. They are amazing and beautiful, and EXPENSIVE!! Could you two figure out a way to copy them? (And, you know they would look awesome flanking your doors to the deck! Or your front door! Or both!) I know you have the talent and ability to figure something equivalent out! (And, I don’t!!) Anyway, thanks again for sharing your wonderful talents with us!

Thank you so much Terra! Oh I know those ornament topiaries – they are awesome! Did you know a fellow blogger already made something similar? Here is the link to her tutorial:DIY Tall Ornament Topiary She made several topiaries and used some big ornaments in some and some smaller ones in others. The principle is the same though. So if you like the Grandin Road ones, all you need to do is search for big ornaments. And if you’re on a budget try the thrift stores as they may have some big old ornaments. If you happen to find big ornaments but not in the color you like, you can always paint them with high gloss paint to resemble the Grandin Road topiaries. And if you want a slight change to her topiaries, you can even attach some red and white ornaments to the faux bottom greenery like the ones in the picture below. I hope this helps! 🙂

Oh no! You can check my Pinterest Halloween boards for some ideas if you want. Other than the projects we have here, I also keep a mix of great Halloween projects (from other bloggers) on my Halloween related Pinterest boards. So perhaps that can help 😉

Thank you so much, Eva! Funny you should say that – the gilder’s paste has a nickname in our house: shoe polish…LOL. And yes you’re right! The old school shoe polish does the same effect as gilder’s paste 😉

Thank you so much, Michelle! That’s great to know! We have one about an hour away, but unfortunately, I don’t drive, and I can’t drag Greg to Ikea with me. If you want to know how he feels about IKEA, click on the following link, LOL! https://www.thenavagepatch.com/vintage-desk-makeover/

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